There's nothing like making your own broth. The flavor is richer and more complex than store bought. Even the process of making your own broth is more satisfying. It is surprisingly easy and inexpensive to do. Your homemade broth can be used to make far more than legendary soups. Even more enticing, you can use your homemade broth to create better tasting stews, sauces and gravy, as well as the liquid in stuffing recipes and as a base for many supper dishes.

Cookbooks offer a wide range of recipe ideas for making your own broth but the process is very simple. Broth is the liquid that develops when meat and/or vegetables are simmered in water over a period of time. It really is that simple. Your ingredients can be as traditional or as unusual as you like. Most soup broth or stock recipes focus on one type of meat or seafood or they are vegetable based. The meat is what gives your stock its richness. You can use one meat by itself or you can use a combination.

You can create different kinds of broth by focusing on specific ingredients. You can create a chicken broth by using the bones from a baked chicken. If you want a meatier flavor, add an entire chicken to your broth as it cooks. The meat will need to be discarded when your stock is done as all the moisture and flavor will have transferred to your broth.